


We are women (and we do not break easily)

by Kara_luna



Series: A Song of Fuck You, Everyone Gets a Happy Ending Because I Said So [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Catelyn Tully Stark, BAMF Myrcella Baratheon, BAMF Robb Stark, F/M, Gen, Joffrey Baratheon is His Own Warning, Joffrey getting what he deserves, Justice, Myrcella gets the character development and growth she deserves, POV Myrcella Baratheon, Sexism getting it's ass kicked, The starks win, even though she's only breifly mentioned, exploration of female characters in the world of GOT, still bamf, the starks survive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24534358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_luna/pseuds/Kara_luna
Summary: Myrcella was born to this world with no hope of surviving unscathed. Sister to Joffrey Baratheon lannister waters, she never even had a chance to try. But the wolves, they're pounding on the door, howling to be let in, and war is at the gates, the lion's den is crumbling around her, and Myrcella realizes that no one will protect girls like her.Sansa is alone and no one will be there to protect her in time.Myrcella finally becomes the lioness she always was meant to be, she pulls on her golden pelt and raises her sword, and gods be damned, her brother's reign of terror will end.Even if she must be the one to end it herself.Also: In which Myrcella Baratheon is a girl hardened by the cruelty of men and the world, and finally decides that if no one will be her sheild then she'll arm herself and slit the throats of the little boys who try to lay their hands on her. A world where the Starks lose only their father instead of a war, the Frey's were taken care of before they became a problem, and Myrcella wasn't shipped off to Dorne and instead spent her time in King's Landing protecting Sansa Stark by all means necessary from the cruelty of her brother.
Relationships: Grey Wind & Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon & Myrcella Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon & Sansa Stark, Myrcella Baratheon & Robb Stark, Myrcella Baratheon & Sandor Clegane, Myrcella Baratheon & Sansa Stark, Myrcella Baratheon & Tommen Baratheon, Myrcella Baratheon/Robb Stark, Robb Stark & Sansa Stark, Sandor Clegane & Sansa Stark
Series: A Song of Fuck You, Everyone Gets a Happy Ending Because I Said So [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798237
Comments: 11
Kudos: 163





	We are women (and we do not break easily)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is not the project I was talking about starting in my other fics that are paused right now, but this maaaaayyyy give you a hint about what that project is.... ;)  
> This is actually an idea I had while working on said project and I just couldn't let it go. I really loved the concept of a Myrcella who would protect her brother from Joffrey and then later protect Sansa like the sister she never had, making her the primary recipient of Joffrey's cruelty. Basically, she's a lot like Sansa is in later seasons after suffering so much abuse from the men in her life. There is a happy ending however and joffrey gets what he deserves, AKA brutally murdered (spoiler alert). Oh and the Robb/Myrcella tag is less because theres romance in the story and more because this sets up the potential for something to bloom between them. 
> 
> Btw I titled the google doc I wrote this on, Bitch be Gettin Stabbed and I wanted to share that with you.  
> Anyway, enjoy! ,';)

Myrcella is docile. 

Joffrey is monstrous, Tommen is gentle, and Myrcella is docile. 

She bowed her head when her mother and father entered a screaming match, curtsied until her ankles ached whenever anyone of any importance came to the capital, and when her grandfather and mother discussed what man she would someday wed, she bit her tongue until it bled and swallowed her screams. 

When Joeffry beat her, she bit her tongue and she let him, lest he lose interest and go after Tommen. 

When lords older and drunker than her father watched her from across the room during feasts, jousts, anything, she smiled prettily and accepted their offer of a dance. She bit her tongue until it went numb and her breath probably smelled of blood while they stared down her dress and allowed their hands to wander. 

Her breath always smelled of blood, but no one ever noticed, because she never had the chance to open her mouth. 

Blood has been a part of Myrcella since as long as she can remember. But that is her, and that is Tommen. Tommen, who is loved and protected by many, more powerful and stronger than she, and only ever suffered the barest of Joeffry’s rages. 

Everyone who’d ever been hurt by him had someone to cry to, someone to keep him away, someone to save them. Except Myrcella. But that’s okay. Myrcella is stronger than anyone ever gave her credit for, and she could bear the weight of his cruelty for the rest of her days if necessary. 

Except. 

Except she’s not the only one, anymore, is she?

Because Sansa has no one too. 

Myrcella tried to keep Joeffry’s interest through the year and a half that the Starks waged their war. She innocently mentioned battles lost and asked questions she knew better than anyone, would ensight his fury. 

Most of the time it worked. Most of the time. At least Sansa was spared the worst of it. Joffrey’s verbal abuse was plentiful, yes, and he often enough tore her gowns or confiscated her things, even going as far to toss the last gown made by her mother’s hand into the fireplace, but never did he raise a hand to strike her. 

Myrcella was far too good at distracting him to allow that to happen, even just once. 

Sansa didn’t bleed, no that’s Myrcella. She is the woman born of blood, who lives and most likely will die covered in it, swallowing her own screams again and again. 

Blood is for Myrcella. 

The first time she’d stepped in to take a beating from the kingsguard, it had taken all her mother had to stay seated and silent. Her lioness mother quelled from fear of her own cub. 

Weak. 

But not her daughter, no she sat before the throne as Sansa hurriedly fled, clutching her skirts to her chest and face full of relief and gratitude and guilt. 

“Kneel,” her brother had spat. 

She raised her eyes to meet their twin, so full of madness and bloodlust and so incredibly lost. 

And Myrcella did not kneel. She never did, not for him. Gentle she sat, legs curled to one side and waited for the torture to begin. Her chin did not lower. 

No matter how many times Trant’s ungodly sword struck her back, Myrcella never quivered, never made a sound. 

It hardly mattered if she did anyway. 

All she saw was Queen Rhaella’s soft smile in the books she’d found in the library, the gentle nature of Princess Elia with her fragile health but unwaveringly kind treatment of everyone around her. Little Rhaenys and Aegon who brought smiles to the faces of all who met them with their childish curiosity and courtesy to all, even those below their station and even at such young ages. Of her own mother and the way she would smile at Myrcella and say nothing when asked why her eye was so blackened. 

And the soon to be queen Sansa Stark. 

Will it ever end, she wants to scream and scream and  _ scream.  _

When will someone protect us?!  _ When will anyone care about the women the kings rape and butcher and beat?!  _

Will anyone ever  _ care.  _

Elia, battered and broken, reaching for her children’s corpses-

Rhaenys ripped from beneath her father’s bed and riddled so full of holes, even the servants who’d never met her wept in pure agony and pity. 

Aegon with his head smashed against the wall until his skull caved in, his once adorable face now a horror to look upon- 

Rhaella, body so defiled an open casket was simply impossible-

Her mother’s screams lulling her and Tommen to sleep every night as she was raped over and over again-

And Sansa-

When will someone protect the women our kings bend and bend to break?

Everyone in king’s landing stood aside as women suffered, stood and watched and they did nothing. They let us suffer. 

I am bloody, she raises her eyes from the stone of the throne room. 

I am bent, she makes her way through the ladies of court. They part before her like the sea before a ship’s hull, unable to resist, unable to withstand, so they move away from the unstoppable mass and they live to see another day. 

I am a lion, her stride does not waver as she continues forward, heels clicking on the polished floor, numb to the stare of the Hound, the only kingsguard left to guard the king, now that the city has been laid under siege. Her mother is not here, neither of her uncles or even her grandfather and thankfully not Tommen, for Myrcella’s heart is battered and faded but still it beats with their blood. 

Her grandfather would stop her, her uncles would as well, though for different reasons. Tommen would not, but his innocence, whatever is left of it, would never recover from the blow. Her mother would wail, and as hardened as she had become, as much as she hated that  _ bitch _ and all the others who sat by while innocent people suffered- 

She is still the woman as hardened by the horrors of the world as her daughter is. 

She still suffered. She still became the monster she is because the world demanded far too much and far too young, and far too cruelly. 

Still the one who stroked her hair at night and called her sweetling, who told her she had fallen down the stairs of the sept in the vain hopes of preserving her daughter’s own innocence the day she came to break her fast with a yellow bruise down the left side of her lovely face. 

Myrcella hates her mother, yes, absolutely, but she also loves her, in a way that only makes her hatred that much more corrosive, destroying every sweet memory and happy moment it touches until only a childhood of black and white and grey is left over. 

I am a protector, the Hound stands aside, unnoticed by her brother who is far too busy screaming at his betrothed. Spittle splatters across Sansa’s beautiful red hair. He never went far enough to touch such gorgeous hair, it would lessen the value of his  _ toy.  _

He still pays her no mind, and that. That is his most grievous mistake. No one ever pays attention to Myrcella. Not the merchant from Myr who found his way to Tommen's chambers one night when she was ten, and died of an undiscovered heart condition after choking on the wine she’d demurely offered him. 

Nor the vale knight who took great pleasure in helping Joeffry torment Tommen during his sparring practice, sitting safely away from the weaponry and pretending they knew anything more about swordplay then how to use their positions as the sons of important men to buy themselves knighthoods. 

Coincidently, he happened to be in the stables the day a normally well behaved mare became quite temperamental and broke his back painfully with a blow of her hoof, cripping him forever. Uncle Tyrion had given her a strange look the following day when she visited that same mare, the horse he, himself, had bought her for her seventh name day, and fed the horse a number of her favorite treats. 

“It is unexplainable,” the stable boy had confessed later to the maid who washed Myrcella’s linens. “Lord Tyrion bought the damn horse ‘cause of it’s docile temperament.”

Joffrey raises his hand, and the armor he wore solely for it’s golden beauty rather than to actually use it to fight in the war raging beyond the keep’s walls, glinted in the mid morning sun. It is pretty. Pretty and useful and underappreciated, and soon to be bloody. 

And it will be. 

Just. 

Like. 

Her. 

Sansa whimpers and suddenly nothing else in the world matters but right there right then. 

Who will stop it?

She swiftly whirls back around to the Hound, but he does not stop her when she draws his sword from the sheth. His face, burned to a melted mess on one side but still handsome in a strange way that has nothing to do with his appearance at all, shows something for the first time since she’s met him. 

His face is not dead, not now. He looks at her, and perhaps for the first time sees her. He sees  _ her  _ and his eyes hold real emotion, real thoughts for the first time in perhaps a lifetime. 

Do it, he begs,  _ Do it. _

Her responding smile is razor sharp and full of teeth, and when she turns from him again she realizes the voices of court have disappeared. They’ve fled, she thinks uncaringly, let the sheep flee, for the lion has no more mercy left in her heart for drivel such as them. 

He finally looks at her then, the sound of her heavy sword banging loudly against each step as she ascends to the throne. His attention has been swayed. 

Sansa glances up as well, glances up from between her shaking fingers, curled into herself and shivering with fear. She shivers and she shakes but she is so very strong, the thought strikes Myrcella like lightning, fast and all consuming and true. She is strong and she is beautiful because cower she might, but ‘tis her eyes that lust for retribution, who promise revenge. 

She is smart, smarter than so many unfortunate souls of kings landing, because Sansa learned very quick and not very easy to strike only when you are assured victory. And Sansa is not the unpredictable factor in the room.

They both know the Hound, in the only way you can really know someone who’s lost so much with only worn tatters of trust to spare.

And Joeffry’s madness may make him seem unpredictable to some, but he is everything but, to the woman who’ve been forced to bear his presence so very intimately for so very long. 

And everyone knows what Sansa will do because as smart as she is, Sansa is too good, too unsullied to truly manipulate like Myrcella. For how can you hide what you are if you are not nothing? 

And Sansa? She is a wolf, and she will  _ never _ be nothing, not with a brother bringing all of the south to its knees to bring her home, a sister who runs with sellswords and creatures of the night to get back to her family, two little brothers who fought off an ironborn invasion without their elder siblings’ or mother’s aid, a woman who single handedly allowed her son’s army passage across the twins by slitting the lord’s throat in the dead of night with nothing but her wit and love for her children driving her forward- 

Myrcella is a lion and the most anyone will ever do to protect her is give her a horse so she may take long and solitary rides through the gardens without Joeffry coming for her. 

Myrcella smiles again, softer this time, for Sansa is not the Hound and sees the show of teeth as a threat rather than a gesture of kinship. That will change though, Myrcella is certain, for she is a wolf, and when her brother tears out the throats of Myrcella’s kin, Sansa will realize how beautiful her fangs gleam when covered in her enemy’s innards. 

Do it, her eyes beg, _ do it _ . 

Her eyes are replaced by those of the maid Joeffry had stripped and paraded through the castle for entertainment. They shift to the baby blue of little Tommen as they glistened with unshed tears after seeing her newest bruise, then rapidly to the greyish brown of a poor smith who lost his hand because the sword he made slipped from her brother’s fingers and split open his skin. The muddy brown of the septa he had beheaded, the grey of lord stark, black of the cat Tommen had so dearly loved before it was butchered, her first horse, Tommen’s pet dog, the chambermaid with red hair and blue eyes, the Hound, ser jory, the baratheon bastards, ros, daisy, uncle Tyrion, ser Dantos, marillion, lady,  _ Micah,  _ blue, green, grey, black, silver, gold, brown, more and more and more eyes flash across Sansa’s face until Myrcella can no longer bare to gaze upon them. 

Do it, their eyes beg,  _ do it _ . 

“That’s a man's weapon, little whore. I am the king, and you are just a cunt to be sold.” Joffrey spits at her, raving much like what she imagines Aery’s did in his last months of life. 

Myrcella, docile, pretty, unnoticeable Myrcella, is dead and gone. The woman who meets his gaze, unwavering and unbroken is so much more than that little girl. 

Who will protect the innocent from the kings? 

Who will protect the queens when they are raped? 

The princess when they are abused and wounded and left to weep? 

“I am a woman.” And her voice booms through the chamber. “I am a lion, _ boy, _ and you will hear me  **_roar_ ** .”

And for the first time in Myrcella’s life, she sees true fear flash across Joeffry’s eyes. He skitters backwards as she raises her sword, heavy and solid and deadly and  _ gods- _ Myrcella has never felt so alive. 

His screams echo and for a moment, she is sure the glass will shatter as she sinks the steel into his abdomen. She pulls it out again, not yet finished, and he falls to the ground in his haste to escape her. The king, as he is so adamant about people addressing him as, now crawls like a bug from his destiny, from retribution, from  _ justice _ . Stumbling and grasping at the stone, letting loose only wordless shrieks like a wounded animal, shivering as red leaks from his expensively made silken robes. 

The Hound does not move and Myrcella is certain, somehow, that neither he nor Sansa have looked away. Not when a monster is finally meeting his end. 

All those innocent people he had murdered, all the mothers and fathers who’ve children have been slaughtered, all the people who have starved and died in gutters because of him… All the death and all the pain and the abuse he’s put her through for  _ eighteen years of her life.  _

That,  _ that _ is the story of Joffrey  _ Waters,  _ and this… is how… it  **_ends._ **

Her brother looks up at her one last time, tears shining in his disgustingly clouded green eyes, clouded by pain or his own madness, Myrcella is not sure, and she can find no pity in herself for this miserable excuse for a king. For a prince. For a fiance. For a  _ brother.  _

“Now, sweet brother,” Myrcella breathes pleasantly, mouth in the courtly smile that he has so often beat her for not wearing. “It’s  _ your _ turn to  _ bleed.”  _

The cut across his throat is uneven and too shallow to sever bone and tendon. Myrcella calmly contemplates the angle she should use when she tries again, her brother choking to death on his own blood and pain at her slippered feet. 

This time the hit is enough to silence him, but he is still breathing. Barely, but still his heart beats and air puffs out from his gaping mouth. The wormy lips she’s always despised so, are splattered by his own blood and drool, and he looks quite the mess. Undignified, she thinks with vicious pleasure, dirtied and tarnished, just like me because of you. 

The third and last hit is enough to finally break his neck, killing him at last. I did it, Myrcella softly whispers to the ghosts and the shadows who call to her, I did it. 

It’s over. 

The doors slam open behind her, footsteps of heavily armored men loudly proclaiming their entrance. She hears the gasps and the clattering of swords as they’re dropped in shock. 

She turns to the “enemy’s” army now within the throne room, her eyes are weary and tired as she scans the lines of men looking for someone. Her eyes lock with his as he steps forward, a wolf large enough for a grown man to ride by his side. However, her gaze is for him and him alone. 

He is a king but he wears no crown, instead he stands before her with full armor covered in blood and gore with a sword strapped to his side. Ice, a part of her mind supplies helpfully, that is his father’s sword. The rumors of it being melted down were indeed nothing more than myth than. 

His eyes are breathtaking in the same way a whirlpool is mesmerizing in it’s savagery, or like a wolf, for that matter. The blue roils like a tempest of blues and greys with even a touch of green at it’s pupil. 

She drops her sword, the men before her tensing at the loud noise. They look at her with fear or apprehension, unable to comprehend her blood stained gown. She pads quietly in reverse, her eyes never leaving his. He doesn’t tense though, not like his men, for the young wolf is not afraid. 

He cocks his head to the side, reminiscent of his direwolf and continues to watch, wordlessly. 

With one foot on her brother's chest and a hand in his hair, she tears his head from his corpse. The sound of the skin and tendons ripping is horrific to experience, and all who hear it wince, even Myrcella, the one committing the act. But not the young wolf. His stare is unwavering, as is the wolf’s beside him. 

She strides back towards him, ignoring the soldiers who suddenly draw their swords. But they’re stopped as  _ he  _ raises a hand, as if to tell them she is not to be attacked. But that’s not quite it either is it? No, it reminds her of a wolf snarling at it’s packmates to not interfere with it’s hunt. 

She shivers, but she is not afraid. 

She stops mere feet from him, head held high and as regal as a bruised and beaten lioness can be. 

Then she falls gracefully to her knees before him, her brother’s head held before her like an offering. 

“The head of your father’s murderer, your grace.” She murmurs, head bowed. A strong gloved hand wraps around her arm after a moment, gently bringing her back to her feet. Myrcella holds her breath, wondering if she was wrong about what kind of king he is. His thumb gently grazes her cheek, eyes flickering over her face as if every dip and curve of her is suddenly of the utmost interest to him. 

He takes her brother's head, and without moving his eyes from her, he drops it to the ground and crushes it beneath his heel. 

Myrcella can finally breathe again, and she smells no blood for the very first time in her life. The smell of fresh snow and leather, earth and wood, and smoke fills her lungs and it’s the best taste to ever flit across her tongue. 

Myrcella takes a step back, and then another, before she whips around and sprints to Sansa as fast as her legs can take her. Her skirts are clenched in her fists and nothing matters but getting to the girl next to her brother’s corpse. Her vision tunnels to only Sansa, only the young woman who would have made a beautiful lion but  _ thank the gods _ never became one. 

She slips on the slick floor, but she cares not if she falls and cracks her head open, finally skidding to a stop by her friend. Instantly she has the older girl wrapped in her arms, face pressed to her neck. And finally, for the first time since her father was murdered, Sansa weeps without fear of injury or showing weakness, she weeps freely with what Myrcella could only assume is relief and mourning and vengeance. 

“Shush… It’s okay now, he’s gone. You’re safe now. Shush…” She cards her hands through that vivid red hair, whispering condolences and assurances. No one is ever touching either of them again, no one is  _ touching _ the sister she never had or there will be hell to pay. 

She glances up as the men begin to clear from the room, excluding a few who take up posts by the entrances. The Hound… When did he escape? Did he escape at all? She’d been so distracted she hadn’t even registered his presence disappearing. Perhaps he was taken into custody, perhaps not, Myrcella doubts it would matter in the end. Joffrey is dead, Sansa is safe, and Gregor Clegane was slain long ago by the red viper, the Hound can finally rest now. His watch is over. 

Her eyes immediately flicker back to the king as he climbs the blood splattered steps of the keep, eyes locked on his sister. He’s afraid he’ll startle her, Myrcella realizes with a jolt. Something warm settles in her body at the thought. Sansa will be safe and loved for the rest of her days, right at her brother’s side, treated as the princesses she was always born to become. “No one will ever hurt you again, my sweet wolf.” She says, mouth pressed to Sansa's head and muffled by her hair. 

“Look now, Sansa. It’s your brother, It’s Robb.” His name feels funny on her lips, but Sansa straightens immediately, eyes glistening with hope instead of tears and everything else is forgotten. 

“Robb- Robb h- her- re?” She whimpers with a voice hoarse from tears and grief. 

“Yes, love. He’s here, he’s right here.” She smiles gently, wiping the tears from Sansa’s face like she used to do for Tommen when they were but children and mother was too busy with Joffrey’s tantrums. 

Sansa leans into Myrcella, bowing under the weight of what must be absolute joy from what Myrcella can see of her face. Her smile is crooked and toothy and wonderful and the smile that spreads across her brother's face at the sight makes Myrcella’s blood sing. 

He takes her into his arms and Myrcella is left leaning on her hands beside the corpse of her brother that she forgot is there all together, despite the blood caked under her fingernails. 

She watches him kneel to better embrace his little sister. His arms encompass her entirely and it looks safe and warm and loving- and it feels like a thousand needles are piercing her heart at every angle. 

Because Myrcella’s  _ never once  _ had that. 

The longing is so sudden and strong Myrcella nearly staggers under the weight of it before she catches herself, squashing the feeling immediately. 

Myrcella isn’t like Sansa, she isn’t meant to feel loved and safe and complete. Myrcella is a bloody, bloody kingslayer and kinslayer, far far more stained and spoiled than Sansa could ever be. 

Her kind don’t get fairy tail weddings and happy endings, they get funeral pyres for dreams long forgotten and dusted. 

“You protected her?” His deep tenor brings her back to herself. She blinks dumbly at him for a moment before processing what she’d been asked. 

His eyes dart over the bruises now revealed by her scattered skirts and the sleeves pushed up on her arms. The jagged scars running the length of her waist and stomach are hidden, but judging by his intense gaze, he’s already guessed at their existence. 

“I shielded her the best I could, your grace. But I am not made of steel.” She replied softly. 

“No little lion. You’re made of something so much stronger.” 

He gathers Sansa up in his arms before Myrcella can argue that no, she most certainly is not, and Myrcella realizes that the young woman has fallen asleep. There it is again, the painful feeling in her chest. Sansa trusts him enough to fall asleep in his arms, even in a city still freshly conquered in the dying spasms of a civil war. Perhaps the feeling is jealousy and gods, does that just make her hate herself so much more than she already does. 

“I’m afraid it’s time for us to take our leave, little lion. The North awaits.” He grins, offering her his hand. 

And Myrcella is struck immobile for a moment. She just murdered her brother in cold blood and tore his head from his shoulders. She is the sister of the boy who murdered his father. The daughter of the woman and man who’d crippled his little brother and then attempted to have him killed! 

“I- I’m a lannister, your grace- I don’t- I-.” She sputters dumbstruck. His eyes are warm when she glances up at him, though, unoffended at her blatant disrespect. 

“You defended my sister from your own family. You slayed your brother to protect her, the sister of your enemy. You will always have a place in my kingdom, little lion.” 

His hand is still offered, tantalizing close and probably warm and sturdy and strong… Myrcella hears her mother’s shrieks of the savageness of the northerners, and her father’s drunken ramblings about how unforgiving and empty the north is, and then Joeffry’s rage induced tantrums ring sharp and clear in her ears. 

“Disgusting wolf fucking brutes! I’ll have their heads! I’ll cut off their frozen cocks and make their wives eat them…” The shouting continues but it’s getting quieter and quieter until all Myrcella can hear is her breathing and the breathing of the man before her and his sister. 

Awestruck, Myrcella slips her hand into his, allowing him to pull her to her feet. Their fingers lace together, and neither of them have any intention of letting go. 


End file.
